Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V: Dissecting The Trailer

How much information about Rockstar's new game can we extract from the first teaser trailer? You'd be surprised.

The trailer may not have shed light on new gameplay mechanics or who the game's protagonist will be, but the brief glimpse we got of the game gave us more than enough content with which to speculate. Here's what caught our eye.

Back To San Andreas

In Grand Theft Auto games, the cities are as much of the stars as the characters. Much like GTA IV's Liberty City captured the essence of New York City,
judging by this trailer it looks like Rockstar is bringing the same
impressive level of detail to making a city that looks and feels just
like Los Angeles. The majority of the trailer takes place in Los Santos, the first city players encountered in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Though some city districts return from the last game (including the affluent Hollywood doppleganger Vinewood), it looks like Rockstar is exploring new areas as well. The trailer introduced us to the Pleasure Pier on Vespucci beach, which looks to be a play off Venice Beach. We also saw a highway sign for Little Seoul, the GTA equivalent of Koreatown.

And The Countryside

At this juncture we have no idea if GTA V expands its setting to Los Venturas and San Fiero like San Andreas did, but we do know that there looks to be ample room to roam the countryside. The trailer showed off an impressive mountain range, a vineyard staffed by immigrant workers, and a large expanse of rolling hills littered with wind turbines and dirt roads. If the script leaks are correct, this may be where the pot evangelist grows his cannabis crops.

Flight Is Back

Many fans cried foul when Rockstar failed to include controllable planes in Grand Theft Auto IV. Judging by this trailer, they return in a big way for GTA V. Rockstar featured three aircraft in the footage – a crop duster, a charter plane, and a fighter jet that looks very similar to the Hydra VTOL in San Andreas.

Fun Vehicles

In the trailer alone, we saw a sexy convertible sports car, a jet ski, and a blimp hovering over Los Santos. Blimp killing spree? Where do I sign up?!

Rockstar's Trademark Sense of Humor

No one in video games is better at lampooning American culture than Rockstar. The signs visible in the trailer indicate that the company's sense of humor is still alive and well. A real estate development of downtown condos is called the Mile High Club, the pest control van the characters use as cover for an assault features the slogan "Putting the FU in fumigate," the postal van slogan says, "We aim not to lose it," and the police car has "Obey and survive" on the side. Rockstar even sends up the legendary In-n-Out Burger with an Up-n-Atom Burger truck.

From the trailer images it looks like there is a lot to do in and around each city (more side quests and real estate also). We didn't see San Fran or Vegas in the trailer. But I hope they are in the finished product. Im just thinking that multiplayer could get crazy with all those jets and the huge land mass to venture on...

I'm going to go ahead and call it now: this will be GI's January cover story. I don't think it will be December just because GI always does something really special for that month's issue. But then again, this next installment in the GTA franchise IS really special. Maybe GI will do a retrospective of the GTA series for their next mag? Ahhh....I'm making my head hurt!

Im not sure why people are unsure of who the protagonist is. The narrator sounded caucasian so it can't be the black fella. So im guessin it's the only dude that had a close-up, made multiple appearances, and looked old enuff to be a papi

oh man this just made my day. I love that they're going back to San Andreas,(one of my fav ps2 games) and they're going to be using tech that looks even more beautiful then GTA IV. I can't wait to go to Los Santos!

@ Anticitizen-One I agree with you 100%. GTA Vice City and San Andreas I believe are the best of the GTA Franchis. Tommy And CJ are my personal favorites. How awesome would it be to go to Groove st in with Tommy or CJ.

As long as they make missions repayable like in Red Dead i'll be happy. I can't tell you how annoying it was to not be able to play three leaf clover again in gta IV-one of the best missions in a game ever.

GTA:SA was the BEST GTA game ever from Rock*. I am happy they are returning to SA as Liberty City is fine and dandy but every time they go back there Rock* seems to get a all serous and lose their fun factor that made GTA great and GTA:SA was their crown for the final year on the PS2 and XBox before moving to the PS3 and XBox 360.

Just hope they brought back that RPG side they had going and maybe make a few improvements to it. We will have yet another Game of the Year from them and maybe I'll stop dogging on them over playing Saint's Row. Though...Saint's Row is still fun.